The Final Act: Why You Need an Estate Plan and Why You Need to Talk About It
It’s about preventing chaos for the people you love the most.
Thinking about your own expiration is uncomfortable. And it is easy to kick the can down the road. I told myself for years that I didn’t need to worry about it yet, that I didn’t have enough assets to justify the effort, that I’d get to it when things settled down. Things never settle down. And the longer you wait, the more you are leaving to chance.
Here is the blunt truth: if you own anything (a house, a brokerage account, a savings account) or if you have kids, you need an estate plan. If you don’t have one, the state already has a plan for you. It is called probate court. It is expensive. According to NOLO, probate fees commonly run between 3% and 8% of an estate's gross value. It is public record, meaning anyone can look up what you owned and who got it. And it is slow, with many estates taking a year or more to settle depending on state law and asset complexity. And it is designed by bureaucrats, not by you.
Leaving your family to navigate a government process during the worst weeks of their lives is not just disorganized. It is unkind.
Estate planning is not about you. It is the ultimate act of love for the people you leave behind.
Why a Will Is Not Enough
A will is better than nothing. But it is just a set of instructions for the probate judge. Your family still has to go to court to prove the will is valid, catalog your assets, pay off creditors, and wait for a judge’s signature before they can access a single dollar.
Enter the Revocable Living Trust.
Think of a trust like a bucket you build while you are alive. You put your house, your accounts, and your assets into it. You hold the handle. You control everything exactly as you do now. But when you pass, you have already designated who gets the handle next. There is no court. No judge. No public record. Your successor simply picks up the handle and follows your instructions immediately.
A will is public and goes through probate. A trust is private and bypasses it entirely. If you value your family’s time, money, and privacy, the trust is the clear move.
The Question That Has Nothing to Do With Money
If you have minor children, set the financial conversation aside for a moment. This is the only question that actually keeps parents up at night: if you and your spouse don’t make it home, who raises your kids?
If you have not legally documented your answer, a judge who has never met your family will make that decision for you. They will weigh finances and blood relation. They will not know that your sister-in-law shares your values while your brother does not. They will not know what you would have wanted.
Naming a guardian is not a comfortable conversation. It creates tension between spouses, surfaces difficult family dynamics, and forces you to think about scenarios you would rather not imagine. Do it anyway. Write it down legally. A stranger should not make that call for your children.
The Conversation People Avoid
Creating the documents is paperwork. The harder work is the conversation with the people you have chosen to handle things: your executor, your trustee, the guardian you selected.
Schedule a specific time and keep it high-level. You do not need to share exact dollar amounts. You need to communicate three things: where everything is, who is in charge, and what your intentions are. This matters especially if you are not splitting assets equally. If there is an uneven split, explain the reasoning now so it does not become a fight later.
Think of it as briefing your team on the plan you built to protect them. Clarity now prevents conflict later.
Where to Start
Start with a phone call. But before you do, check your employee benefits. When I was at Akamai, they offered a legal plan that covered exactly this. I used it to build our family’s estate plan. Many large employers offer the same thing. The quality of these plans varies. If yours covers a revocable living trust and not just a basic will, it is worth using. If it doesn't, pay out of pocket. It is worth a five-minute review of your benefits portal before you pay out of pocket. If the benefit is not there, consult a qualified professional. A local estate attorney is the right call. This is not a do-it-yourself project. The investment is worth it to make sure the documents actually work when they are needed. Probate rules, trust requirements, and power of attorney statutes vary by state. What works in Virginia may not hold in California. A local attorney is highly recommended.
At minimum, you need three things. A trust establishes who gets what and bypasses probate entirely. A financial power of attorney designates who manages your accounts if you are incapacitated. A healthcare directive specifies who makes medical decisions if you cannot make them yourself.
Then fund the trust. This is where some people fail. They pay the attorney, sign the documents, and consider the job done. But an unfunded trust is an empty bucket. You have to retitle your home, transfer your taxable accounts into the trust, and review your beneficiary designations on retirement accounts separately for it to work. Attorneys do not always follow up on this step, and retitling assets feels tedious enough that people put it off indefinitely. Do not let the paperwork be the thing that unravels everything else.
The Lowe Down
Call a local estate attorney this week. If you own a home or have kids, this conversation is overdue.
Before you pay out of pocket, check your employee benefits. Many employers offer legal plans that cover estate planning. It takes five minutes and could save you hundreds.
Get the Big Three in place: a trust, a financial power of attorney, and a healthcare directive. Each one closes a gap the others cannot cover.
Fund the trust. Retitle your home and transfer your taxable accounts into it. For retirement accounts, review your beneficiary designations separately. The documents do nothing if the assets are not connected to them.
Have the conversation with your executor, trustee, and named guardian. Tell them where things are, who is in charge, and why you made the decisions you made. One hour of clarity now saves your family months of conflict later.
Do it before you need it. By the time you need it, it is too late to build it.
It’s a no brainer.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
Lowe Intelligence is a trade name of ForsythTrail LLC, a Virginia limited liability company.